Well, Russo's kinda right about both, isn't he? We know for a fact that 1st round picks aren't guarantees and we also know that there have been just really no offer sheets that have been successful. Sure, some of the offer sheets have been signed, but they've either been met by their original team's GM, or the GM has let that player go and the player tends to play worse in the new setting, and is overpaid... and was acquired at the cost of a bunch of 1sts. Just because 1sts aren't a guarantee doesn't mean they're worthless. Four 1sts give much better odds than one 1st does at getting a great player.
I got curious, so I looked back at the history of offer sheets. The last one that turned out well for the team that tendered the offer sheet was when the New York Rangers offer sheeted Adam Graves on September 3, 1991. Graves was phenomonal for the Rangers, while the compensation that the Oilers received, Troy Mallette, turned out to not be great. So we have to go back nearly 30 years to find a single good offer sheet. Now that the salary cap is a thing, GMs have largely given up on even trying this tactic.
I agree that four firsts isn't too much to acquire a 1st line center, if your team is in the right situation to take him and immediately start winning, and also if you don't have to offer sheet him, which will necessitate a contract that is worth more than what he actually brings to the ice. So you see, the overpayment of the player is also a cost. It would be far better to trade the four 1sts than to pay them as compensation in an offer sheet, because now you're not overpaying a player and screwing up your cap situation. An offer sheet requires two costs, the cost of the picks, and extra cost of the player's contract over what it would have been in normal negotiations.